Drama Queen

McCraney's work gets read

One more time from the soapbox:  Miami's Tarell Alvin McCraney is one of the hottest young playwrights in both the United States and England, but we've yet to see a full-fledged professional production of his work here at home (though it's not for lack of trying by a couple of companies, who were turned down when they went after rights to produce The Brothers Size).

That won't change this weekend, but McCraney-curious folks can experience the power of his words and imagination when his play Wig Out!gets a two-performance staged reading as part of the Miami Made lineup at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts.

The African American Performing Arts Community Theater's Teddy Harrell Jr. is directing Giordan Diaz, Joseph Long, Lela Elam, Kristoff Skalet, Eric Bendross, Ya Ya Browne, David Podein, Marcell Black, Nathalia Lemos, Alexia Maxwell, Leondra Mitchell and Kevin Johnson in the free reading of McCraney's piece about two competing drag houses, and the families born of them.

Showtime is 3 p.m. Saturday, 8 p.m. Sunday in the Arsht's Peacock Foundation Studio inside the Sanford and Dolores Ziff Ballet Opera House, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami.  To request a free ticket, visit the Arsht web site.

And by the way: Three San Francisco-area theaters (American Conservatory Theater, Magic Theatre and Marin Theatre Company) are joining forces to produce McCraney's acclaimed trilogy, the Brother/Sister Plays (each will stage one part, and the three plays will run at the same time next fall).  Could that be a model for a trio of South Florida theaters?

(Carol Rosegg photo from Vineyard Theatre production of Wig Out! in New York)

Moving on

Marco Ramirez, the South Florida playwright whose very clear talent (and string of honors) got him into the highly competitive play-writing program at Manhattan's Juilliard School, has landed a gig writing for the FX television series Sons of Anarchy.  He has left New York for Los Angeles, and if the TV thing works out, who knows how much time/interest he'll have in continuing to write plays?

One Ramirez play that has already had a production by Miami's Mad Cat Theatre Company -- Broadsword, about guys in a heavy metal band who reunite when one of their own vanishes -- is coming back this spring, this time in a larger venue.  Mad Cat will revisit Broadswordin a coproduction with Miami's Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts.  The show plays the Carnival Studio Theater April 29-May 9. 

Alex Fumero, Ramirez's pal and sometime collaborator in the Foryoucansee Theater company (it presented the original reggaeton/sci fi show Toners in Timein June),has also relocated to L.A.  Fumero is attending the Atlantic Theater Company's conservatory, where students study with the likes of David Mamet, William H. Macy and Felicity Huffman.  

Pulitzer winner, Broadway diva hit town

Fans of terrific playwrights and/or captivating Broadway actor/singers, heads up:  This week brings appearances by both kinds of artists in Miami.

Nilo Cruz, the Cuban-American playwright who won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Anna in the Tropics (which was commissioned by and premiered at tiny New Theatre in Coral Gables), kicks off the Make Art Work lecture series at the New World School of the Arts.  Speaking on the topic Exploring the Imagination and Possibilities in the Theater, Cruz will discuss his dramatic process, including character development.  The hour-long talk happens on Wednesday -- that's tomorrow -- at 1:15 p.m. in the Louise O. Gerrits Theater at 25 NE Second St., Eighth Floor, Miami.  Spending an hour with the articulate, creative, inspiring Cruz costs nothing, and the event is open to anyone.  For more information, call 305-237-3502.

Also this week, Sherie Rene Scott -- whose Broadway credits include Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Little Mermaid and Aida (plus the upcoming Broadway production of Everyday Rapture)-- kicks off the Arsht Center's Cabaret & Cocktails series in the Carnival Studio Theater. 

Scott's cabaret debut, with the space set up like a jazz club, happens Thursday through Saturday, Oct. 15-17.  Performances are 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 5:30 and 8:30 p.m. Saturday.  Tickets are $45, with the "cocktails" part of Cabaret & Cocktails available for purchase at the theater.  For information, call the box office at 305-949-6722 or visit the Arsht web site.

Divas and drinks

OK, so the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts is actually calling its 2009-10 cabaret series "Cabaret & Cocktails," but you get the picture.  Three Broadway leading ladies -- Sherie Rene Scott, Karen Akers and Christine Andreas (she's pictured here) -- will do their thing in the Carnival Studio Theater this season.  Rechristened the Carnival Studio Cabaret for these performances, the theater will become a club where audiences can order drinks and nibbles created by restaurateur Barton G.

Scott, who has starred on Broadway in Aida, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Little Mermaidand more, makes her cabaret debut Oct. 15-18.  Akers devotes an evening to the songs of Jule Styne Jan. 21-24.  And Andreas, who starred in the first-ever show at the Arsht (The Light in the Piazza), brings her acclaimed cabaret show back to the Carnival April 22-25.

Single tickets are $45; a subscription to all three shows is $123.  Tickets go on sale Sept. 12.  For more information, call 305-949-6722 or visit the Arsht web site.

Meltzer out as City's Shorts streamlines

Stuart Meltzer just wrapped up his second season as the artistic director of City Theatre, the company that presents the popular annual Summer Shorts festival at Miami's Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts and the Broward Center.  As he found out after he went to work on Wednesday, that second season will be his last:  He was let go by Stephanie Norman (City's executive director and one of the company's three founders) and Alan Fein (board chairman and spouse of Susan Westfall, another City founder who also sits on the board).

Norman (she's in the middle in the photo, with Meltzer to the left and general manager Kerry Shiller to the right) explains that the company has a $50,000 deficit, a burden made worse by shortfalls in projected ticket sales in both Miami-Dade and Broward.  Worst hit during the recently ended 14th annual Shorts Fest was the Shorts 4 Kids program, which drew 76 percent of capacity last summer but fell below 30 percent this year -- probably, Norman guesses, because recession-related cutbacks brought far fewer school and camp groups to the theater.

Looking at the deficit, disappointing ticket sales and fundraising challenges, and anticipating a loss of $15,000 to $20,000 in grant money for next season, Norman, Fein and the board weighed numerous options and made the choice to go back to a seasonal festival coordinator rather than a year-round artistic director.

"The reviews and response from the audience were strong [this year],'' Norman says, "but we didn't hit our numbers."

So one major savings, it seems, will be Meltzer's salary.  The South Florida native, former head of theater at Gulliver Prep and a former full-time faculty member at the New World School of the Arts, was shaken by the news of his sudden unemployment but has chosen to take the high road.

"The board hired a young, energetic, creative person who was going to shake things up, and I tried to do that.  City Theatre has a terrific board in both Miami-Dade and Broward -- they care a lot,"  he says.  It's just bad luck that the economy is what it is."

Fein says that founders Norman, Westfall and Elena Wohl "did a great job taking the organization to the next level and the next.  After the 10th year, we asked whether we should just declare victory and wrap it up."  Because of support from the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, Carnival Cruise Lines, the Arsht Center and numerous other companies, foundations, individual donors and government grants -- and because of the festival's popularity -- it stuck around and kept growing until the economy shriveled. Fein says that he's determined to make sure the 15th Summer Shorts starts $50,000 in the black and is hoping the company's artistic process "gets more collaborative again."

Norman says of Meltzer, "He's a charming, bright, articulate, wonderfully creative soul.  Working with him has been a pleasure.  I like him very much personally...Do we agree on everything?  No. When you put on art, disagreement is just human nature.  This model didn't work.  For better or worse, it has to change."

A caliente "Fuerza Bruta"

Fuerza Bruta, that surreal entertainment event unfolding almost nightly on the Ziff Ballet Opera House stage at Miami's Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, is packing in the hands-on club-going types who normally wouldn't be caught dead going to the hoity-toity stuff they think of as theater.  The Arsht is again reaching out to that new young audience by releasing a new block of tickets and offering a limited number of $20 rush tickets an hour before each performance.

Performances of Fuerza Bruta, which runs through July 5, are at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday, with 10 p.m. late shows on Friday and Saturday.  Experiencing the production is different in myriad ways: You enter through the Opera House loading docks, chill out before and after with music, drinks and food in the G-Lounge, then get taken onto the stage where you stand, gawk, move around and occasionally brush up against the action for an hour.

Regular tickets are priced at $63.75 and $73.75.  The Arsht is located at 1300 Biscayne Blvd., but you enter through the loading docks on NE 14th St.  For info, call 305-949-6722, or visit the Arsht Center or Fuerza Bruta web sites.

Family boredom buster

Though the kids are barely out of school for the summer, we're betting that more than a few parents have already heard that familiar yelp: "I'm bored!"

So take them to the theater already.

Shorts 4 Kids, the family-friendly portion of City Theatre's Summer Shorts Festival, is running at Miami's Arsht Center through June 21.  Shows are at 11 a.m. Thursday-Friday, 1 p.m. Thursday-Sunday.

For $17 per person, you get to see eight short plays and songs written by Michael McKeever, Marco Ramirez, Deborah Zoe Laufer, Shel Silverstein, Jennifer Maisel, Maggie Bandur, Cyndi Lauper and Lisa Loeb.  Shorts 4 Kidshas its own fine acting company too:  Katherine Amadeo, Chris Dall'au, Nick Duckardt, Vanessa Elise, Betsy Graver and Joshua Robinson.

To reserve at the Arsht, call 305-949-6722 or visit the center's web site.  If you'd drather take the kids to see the program when it moves to the Broward Center June 25-28, call 954-462-0222 or visit that web site.

Playwrights meeting in Miami

After a successful gathering during City Theatre's Summer Shorts last year, the Dramatists Guild is sponsoring a workshop and panel discussion before this Saturday's Shorts performances.

From 2 to 3:30 p.m. in the Carlin Room at Miami's Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Gary Garrison (the guild's executive director of creative affairs) and Andie Arthur (the guild's Florida regional representative) will offer an information session about the guild, talk about new programs and answer questions.

Following that first session, several of South Florida's key artistic directors will talk about trends in theater and play-writing.  Garrison, whose play Storm on Stormis part of the Signature Shorts program, will moderate a panel that will include City's Stuart Meltzer, Ricky J. Martinez of New Theatre, Louis Tyrrell of Florida Stage, Meredith Lasher of the Women's Theatre Project and Andrew Kato of the Maltz Jupiter Theatre.

Space at both events is limited, and though anyone can attend, priority is given to Dramatist Guild Members. The Arsht is at 1300 Biscayne Blvd. in Miami. To register, e-mail lpontius@dramatistsguild.com by Thursday.  City Theatre is also inviting the folks attending to stick around for its Signature Shorts program at 7 p.m. and its bawdy Undershorts program at 10 p.m. (the photo is from Ken Brisbois' Sodom & Gomorrah: Priced To Sell).  For information on Summer Shorts, call the Arsht box office at 305-949-6722 or visit City Theatre's web site.

Don't-miss plays

Lots of shows are opening this weekend: the three separate programs of City Theatre's Summer Shorts Festival (Signature Shorts, Undershorts and Shorts 4 Kids) in the Carnival Studio Theater at Miami's Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts;  Neil LaBute's In a Dark Dark House at Mosaic Theatre in Plantation; Strange Snow at the Alliance Theatre Lab in Miami Lakes.

  But two plays that won't be around much longer are worth clearing your schedule to see.  At Davie's Promethean Theatre, Gregg Weiner, Deborah L. Sherman and David Sirois are doing a deft job of eviscerating both reckless, self-adoring celebrities and tabloid "journalists," Though some of playwright Joe Penhall's plot details seem far-fetched at best, Dumb Show is thrillingly watchable, thanks in part to Margaret M. Ledford's bracing direction.  The performers' British accents are spot on as they allow us to wallow in the pleasure of observing three morally compromised  human beings doing nasty things to one another.  Dumb Show, which is anything but, ends its run this weekend, so scurry on over to the Nova Southeastern University campus where Promethean performs.

 At Actors' Playhouse in Coral Gables, you have two more weekends to catch Cold Case star Danny Pino and his fine fellow actors in Carlos Lacamara's Havana Bourgeois.  The play about Cuban society's gradual erosion -- from the heady, optimistic revolutionary days of 1958 to the cruel realities of Fidel Castro's government, revealed just two years later -- unfolds within the walls of a Havana advertising agency. Under David Arisco's sure direction, James Puig, Jossie Harris Thacker, Jennifer De Castroverde, Oscar Cheda, David Perez Ribada, Joshua David Robinson and Francisco "Pancho" Padura play achievers and strivers, most of whom don't fully grasp the elusive truth until their dreams -- or their lives -- have crumbled.  Particularly for those who lived this and left Cuba (and for the people who love them), Havana Bourgeois becomesan intense, emotional theater experience.

Theater for less

Since we're all looking to save money these days (aren't we?), three cost-conscious theater opportunities may be just the ticket for a dwindling entertainment budget.

Miami's Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts is offering a buy one-get one deal on ticket to select performances of its three summer season shows:  the Off-Broadway extravaganza Fuerza Bruta (check it out in the photo) June 9-11 and June 14, the return of Celia: The Life and Music of Celia Cruz June 2-4, and City Theatre's popular Summer Shorts May 28-29 and May 31.  The only catch is that you have to show up from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. this Saturday, April 4, at the Arsht box office, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., to get the deal.

If you are willing to drive up to Boca Raton, you can catch a production of Helen Edmundson's searing play The Clearing for just $16 ($10 if you're an FAU faculty member, student or alumnus).  Set in 1652, the tragic drama concerns an English husband and his Irish wife during the time Oliver Cromwell was trying to drive the Irish from Ireland.  The play begins Friday, April 3, and runs through Sunday, April 12 in the Studio One Theatre on the campus at 777 Glades Rd.  Call 1-800-564-9539 or visit the FAU web site.

And if you're not planning to go to the 33rd annual Carbonell Awards on Monday, April 6, at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, you may want to discover (for free!) what young playwrights are thinking.  Florida Stage, 262 S. Ocean Blvd. in Manalapan,  is presenting its Young Playwrights Festival at 7 p.m. Featured are works by Ashley Stornant (For the Record), Hope Tiffany (Unsaved), Rachel Chapnick (A Storm's a Brewin'), Stephanie Berra (A Day To Remember), and a couple of collaborative works by elementary school students, Endangered Animals and The Mixed-Up Rainbow.